Using Tarot for Writing Stories, Part 3

Throw away the spreads - an example from my own notebook

If you have not read part 1 and 2 yet, I highly recommend you do so before proceeding:

Part 1 of this series focused on rudimentary tarot basics, and part 2 continued the basics and went through an example spread with a fresh pull of cards. It was a lot, and there was structure. In this next part, I am taking away the structure and adding intuition to the mix. We are going to travel with no plan and look at a project I am working on that evolved so rapidly that my original notes are already old. They are shown at the end – all the scribbles, the evolution of the idea, and my intuitive pushes I received as this process played out. What I plan to do with all of this is not yet written into the full set of stories, but I have enough notes that I can pick up the pieces with ease and adapt it any way I see fit.

This project has evolved from a novella idea to a set of short stories instead. The novella portion is still there, but it has drastically changed from my first pages of notes. As an intuitive and medium, I sometimes receive ideas, songs, and flashes of inspiration – and I have to figure out how it all fits together.

Where do these downloads come from? Usually through my guides, and it flows though me quickly. You don’t need to have my abilities to do this – tarot can help guide these ideas to get your mind flowing with the character archetypes, emotions, actions, and plot points. This post will go through the structure-less actions I took to develop my “big” writing project. I’ve worked on 3 out of the 8 card themes so far (2 are released, and 1 more is just about finished). I lucked out for one of the cards, which you will see shortly, as I wrote it before I pulled the cards and it fit the theme perfectly.

---

Let’s start from the beginning, and my state of mind when this happened to me – the flow. My friend

William Pauley III

challenged me to write a creative short story based on a prompt. This story is called “The Sacred Mushroom”. It was my first attempt at creative writing. While I would make many editing changes in hindsight, I am not going to because it is a snapshot of where I was at this time in my life. It’s special to me. I wrote the next story a few months later from another of William’s writing prompts and it’s a big one, “Hell Hath no Fury Like a Tree’s Scorn”. I felt like I was on a creative roll, and one evening I intuitively decided to see if tarot could help me come up with some ideas for the next story.

---

Attempt #1- Thanks, but No Thanks

A fresh new Moleskine hardcover notebook open and ready, I started pulling random plot cards. My guides have a funny sense of humor, one I have no issue with saying “no” if I don’t personally find it funny. This is one I said “no” to right away. The very first attempt at pulling plot cards for a story fell out in this order, and this is how I interpreted it:

The first three are people -

1. Daughter of Cups

2. Son of Wands

3. Daughter of Wands

This is a real situation from my own life, a love triangle of sorts. I am the daughter of Cups, and they are the Son of Wands/Daughter of Wands.

Plot:

1. 6 of Swords

2. 6 of Pentacles

3. 2 of Cups

4. Ace of Cups

5. 7 of Swords

This was a complicated situation that resulted in hurt feelings, high emotions, and many hidden things revealed towards the end which ultimately imploded everything, permanently severing the connection. See all those swords and cups? I do not have any interest in writing about broken love and twisted relationship drama. While I appreciated that my guides thought this would make an interesting story, this will not work for me. Why would I ever want to mentally go back to that time? I told my guides “no” and moved on to the next spread.

I mention this to show that not all that comes out of the tarot cards are practical, appropriate, or useful – these are only tools, and you can start again if it does not feel right. There are no rules, and you absolutely should say “no” to things that don’t work for you.

---

Attempt #2 – The Clear Winner

This one hit me hard, it flooded my mind with life, a soundtrack of music, and vivid imagery I still cannot shake. I pulled out 8 cards, and these 8 cards will define my writing path for the foreseeable future. 8 is a number that has meaning for me – it is the infinity symbol, and many cards with “8” in it resonate with me (8, 18, etc). I didn’t plan on pulling 8 cards, i just pulled until it felt complete. See? Intuition at work.

1. The Devil

2. 5 of Swords

3. Judgement

4. The Hierophant

5. Strength

6. 3 of Wands

7. Ace of Swords

8. 10 of Pentacles

Looking at these cards, I saw everything – a good mix of major and minor arcana, strong themes, and interesting archetypes. This was the winner. The card that caught my attention was The Devil, and I pulled out a disastrous mess of heavy potential plot points for this aspect of the story:

• 9 of Swords

• 3 of Swords

• The Tower

• 10 of Swords

• Death

• The Wheel of Fortune

• 4 of Swords

• 2 of Wands

• Daughter of Swords

• The Fool

Holy hell, what a combination. Nearly all of these are heavy emotions, death-related, life-changing transitions, and so many swords. The themes alone made for an awesome dark story which made my heart sing.  I intuitively linked all of these cards to The Wheel of Fortune as the center of it all. This early connection was the critical piece of information that pulled everything together.

I was on to something.  I didn’t look at these cards one by one, but the mood when pulled together was enough. I considered The Wheel of Fortune, and the first thought in my mind was that this was related to the concept of reincarnation, but not in a pleasant way. This was more like being stuck in a negative cycle of reincarnation one cannot escape, and The Devil could be the the fate they will meet when they cycle through negatively too many times. This is function of The Wheel of Fortune. My mind was alive with too many ideas at this point. I even got the first line of this story, and that it would focus on addiction.

Over the next week, I let this simmer in my head on this until it finalized into something that made sense to me. I opened my magical Moleskine again, and I got music this time, a soundtrack to this story of the damned. What came through was one of the most influential albums from the 1990’s: Nine Inch Nails, “The Downward Spiral”. This album spoke to me when it came out – I was in the midst of trauma in my home, and depression and anger were major themes in my life. The specific song that played in my head, at maximum volume, was “Mr. Self Destruct”. I also got the creepy clown music from the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s IT. Have I mentioned that I hate clowns?

What a way to open a open a story, yeah? I listened to this album while taking notes and researching to put me in the right frame of mind. It was very effective to say the least. I did research on how to structure these cards for The Devil card into a workable plot, and settled on this:

• Part 1: Chasing Death

  • 9 of Swords

  • 3 of Swords

  • The Tower

  • 10 of Swords

  • Death

• Part 2: The Wheel of Fortune

  • The Wheel of Fortune

  • 4 of Swords

  • 2 of Wands

  • Daughter of Swords

  • The Fool

Putting it All Together

While I will keep my specific plot in my notebook, this broke open the overall story in a huge way. I decided to reorder the first 8 cards, knowing the ending is The Devil. This card came out first, so I reordered the first 8 to show a clear devolution of my main character:

1. 10 of Pentacles – wealth, inheritance, family

2. Strength – courage, patience, control, compassion, strength

3. These two will be one story, with two major themes. Perhaps a story about a cult

   1. The Hierophant – religion, group identification, conformity, tradition, beliefs

   2. Judgement – rebirth, inner calling, absolution, judgement

4. These three will be one story, “Chasing the Dragon” as a tentative theme

   1. Ace of Swords – raw power, victory, breakthroughs, mental clarity

   2. 3 of Wands – preparation, foresight, enterprise, expansion

   3. 5 of Swords – conflict, tension, loss, defeat, winning at all costs with intentional destruction

5. The Devil

   1. Part 1: Chasing Death

      1. 9 of Swords

      2. 3 of Swords

      3. The Tower

      4. 10 of Swords

      5. Death

   2. Part 2: The Wheel of Fortune

      1. The Wheel of Fortune (use reversed position for negative context)

      2. 4 of Swords

      3. 2 of Wands

      4. Daughter of Swords

      5. The Fool

I imagine this list is intimidating. I have pages and pages of notes, research, and story ideas between these card pulls. My initial idea on how to write this novella has drastically changed from then through today. The original 8 cards yielded 5 full stories I can work with and rearrange.

I decided to break the early cards into isolated short stories for first half.  My issue is the first half has devolving themes for the main character, and those themes vary wildly in tone ranging from positive and light, to dark and twisted. I decided to pull out the first card (10 of Pentacles) entirely. Its tone does not belong with the others, just too happy. I released it as a short story on its own:

This is the story for Strength:

The next story I am writing, which is nearly done, was initially based on the first half of The Devil section. I may still include it in the novella, with necessary edits to fit it into the novella’s story structure. I will be releasing it on its own as well, with an integrated music soundtrack to play while you read it, “The Temple of Beats”. It may be that I scrap it from the novella entirely. Either way, it will be released shortly. It’s a drug-fueled audio sensory story of a girl at a rave in the 1990’s. You don’t have to like electronic music to read this, and I encourage readers to try it with their full senses activated – that’s how I experience it while I write it. If you have any sensitivities to descriptions of drugs, drug-fueled behavior, or any addiction issues which may be triggered by this, please do not read this story. I’m serious.

---

I hope this is helpful in seeing where your intuition, with no clear road map, can take you with a story idea. Developing this into a full story takes a lot more than just pulling cards, but my hope is that it helps direct the story in an intuitive way, adding elements you may not have thought of on your own.

If you feel stuck after pulling cards, I would offer the following guidance to get you moving again:

1. Throw away the meaning of the cards from the book, and focus on the image itself. Close your eyes for a few seconds and then open them, looking at the card in question. What grabs your attention first? That’s where you go next.

2. Consider music and sounds. Quiet your mind and ask yourself a few questions. What song would be the theme song of this card? What sounds would you hear if you placed yourself inside the confines of this card? What is the mood common to these questions’ answers? Go with this for your next steps. Listen to this music while you write, research, or anytime you want to feel that story’s unique voice.

3. Still stuck? Go ahead and close that notebook to let your mind ruminate on these themes for a while to see what settles. Come back to it when you feel ready. Work on other parts of the story in the meantime. Something may connect when you least expect it.

Here’s my mess of notes. It happened over multiple days, in pieces. I can only tell the sequence by the color of pen or pencil I used.

My scribbles, research, and brain poured out into my notebook